Until very recently, most Northsiders we’ve talked with have agreed, the metropolitan media have found North Minneapolis an easy news target, reporting on various murder and mayhem in the "another shooting in" story construction. And then, the "we usually hear bad news coming from this area; well, lookie here, we found some good news" construction. I know, here I am doing it, too.

We have been watching, through "Google Alerts" everything that hits the internet through various traditional media sources as well as various blogs that this service picks up. We have started to see more good-news feature stories that don’t have that bad-news preface.

But here’s the one that really tells us the tide has turned:

The weather. Twice now, once with the season’s gale-force winds Oct. 27 and again with the first big snow dump Nov. 12-13, the cameras came to North Minneapolis and recorded trees down and people playing in the snow. Normal activity. Normal people saying normal things.

It’s not a reason to stop monitoring and evaluating. Continue, and be ready to complain if old patterns emerge. But now, to just knee-jerk

accuse the media of only showing up for the bad stuff, is to look like yesterday’s news ourselves.

See if there might be a new breeze blowing, something that can be directed to fill the sails of a better media image of North Minneapolis.